


Shades of Blue

by ariesconcepts (orphan_account)



Category: Moonlight (2016)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 07:51:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9983954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ariesconcepts
Summary: A single touch from a soulmate can turn your world from dark to light. Chiron has more than one.





	

**Author's Note:**

> She's Back At it Again, but this time with a three chapter soulmate!au that is about Chiron and Kevin, but also touches on parental soulmates? Raise your hand if you're crying already.
> 
> ALSO! CONGRATS TO MOONLIGHT! Beautiful film getting it's praise!

Like everyone else, Chiron is born into black and white. He thinks that this is the way everyone sees the world – grey trees and black grass and an endless white sky. He thinks his skin is supposed to be dim and ashen, occasionally polished by Vaseline or shea butter. To his eyes, his skin is the same color as the wetness in the big, white tub and the small, grey sink. Everything he touches is monochromatic and Chiron, young and dark grey, doesn’t think that it matters all that much.

Sometimes his mother will point to his shoes and say, “Do you want the green ones or the red ones?” Chiron stands, confused and silent. Mother will point harder and say, “Don’t you know your colors?”

Colors? The word is unfamiliar to him, foreign as grown-up TV and the big kids’ school. His mother shakes her head, realizes something then chooses a pair for him. She stuffs his feet in, herds him into a backpack and then rushes him off to school.

School is another big, grey building. The people there are either light grey or dark grey. During recess, they run around a black playset, screaming and laughing. This is perfectly normal, perfectly understandable. He takes everything as he sees it, thinking that this is the way the world is and always will be. Then he meets Kevin.

They have assigned seats during lunch time – a tactic thought up by a clever, overtired teacher. Terrell – a mean boy that pinches him – is sat next to another mean boy. A few of the girls are scattered here and there. Everyone is put into pairs, clusters. Chiron brushes shoulders with a boy with brown skin.

The contact is brief. For a few moments, he sees greens and oranges and reds and yellows. It overwhelms him. It excites him. He wants none of it. He wants all of it.

At recess, he seeks out this color-bringing boy. He learns his name is Kevin and as they play tag, the colors around him become solid. The grass is green. The sky is blue and bright with whipped cream clouds. His skin, like Kevin’s, is dark brown, smoothed over with cocoa butter and baby oil. When he looks at Chiron, it’s like the world is changing for him too. Chiron blinks in the sunlight – horrible, too much yellow but sweet still. Kevin smiles, all missing teeth and childish charisma.

“Do you wanna be friends?”

Chiron isn’t good with his words. They have a habit of getting caught in his throat, catching on the jagged edges of his teeth. He nods. They stay close together, running together after school and pointing out the colors that they see only in each other’s company.

“Look at that bug!” Kevin says to him one day, bent over a caterpillar. “What’s that color, Little?”

Chiron stumbles over, squints and admits he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know a lot of things actually. He doesn’t know why his mommy is sick so many times. He doesn’t know why he got a bike for his birthday and then lost it a week later. He doesn’t know why being around Kevin feels like ice cream and cotton candy and baths with spoons for boats. He accepts that this is the way the world is.

Chiron’s mother does not believe in soulmates. She thinks they’re made up, silly things told to children to explain the colors that flash in their eyes. His mother lives in a dim world, grey and white with only pale splashes of purple and blue. She says she can see some things and doesn’t need the rest. She says that it’s enough that she can see Chiron and the sky and the red (pink, to her) signs.

“What about brown?”

Mother snorts and says, “What about it?”

“Can you see it?”

Lifts her eyebrows and shoulders. “Used to be able too. Saw it when you were jus’ born. You must still be black as ever if you’re still asking that. Why does it matter what I can see?”

He shrugs. He doesn’t say that he wants her to see the world like he does, solid and bright and good. His mother looks at him from the corner of her eye and smirks.

“So … some little girl got you seeing colors? Look at my little player!”

Why does that make him freeze? Why do those words make his heart beat fast and his stomach burn? He doesn’t move. He just stands and watches his mom fumble with a knife. She hears the silence and sees him standing stiffly.

“Chiron? It is a little girl, right?”

* * *

 

In art class, they paint pictures. The children that can’t see color have discordant collections of clashing colors, grating at the senses and destined for the trashcan. Those that do see color are huddled in the corner, “secretly” painting pictures of their soulmates. They’re all laughing and pointing, creating colorful blobs with dots for eyes and black swoops for hair.

Chiron’s soulmate looks like Kevin. Terrell looks over his shoulder and makes a face and then laughs. He builds a chorus of sneering and teasing around him, a crescendo of unkind words. Kevin sees the paper, and Chiron thinks he could spend his entire life curled into a ball. His face is hot as the red burner on the stove, as the stop sign and his mom’s favorite shirt.

The kids call him an ugly name until the teacher finally catches wise. She disperses the group with ease, separating the crowd from Chiron. She snatches the paper away from a still cawing boy, looks down and then back up at Chiron. Her eyes are understanding and a little sad. She puts a hand on his back and throws a hard look to the other children. She doesn’t give him his painting back.

Later on, when he’s walking home, Kevin catches up to him and hands him the picture. It’s been folded small and won’t be smoothed out again, but Chiron’s rendition of Kevin’s boyish face is as clear as ever. Chiron is big-eyed as he stares at his work and at Kevin.

“You stole this?”

“Nah. I asked for it.”

They’re trudging side by side, comfortable silence all around them.

“Why’d you draw me?”

Chiron lowers his head. No words or, at least, he doesn’t know the right ones. Kevin nudges him and says, “I like it! How’d you learn to draw like that?”

The rest of the day is spent at the park sketching cartoon characters. The grass is green. The sky is turning red and orange. Kevin’s shirt is blue. Chiron decides in that moment that blue is his favorite color. 

* * *

 

Chiron puts his chin on his hand during math and doodles hearts in the borders without understanding what they mean. He looks at Kevin nervously, jittery. He doesn’t know why but it feels like Valentine’s day cards and lollipops inside of his shoes and his shirt.

During dance class, he jumps and spins, different from all the other kids. Some of the girls dance around him, smiling and clapping along to the music. He sings the songs in class but also when walking down the hall way, horn and drum playing on in his mind. Somebody calls him a name. Somebody else calls him a name. That word again – familiar, ugly – is called from all four corners.

Chiron spends a lot of time running. He hides from the boys – all his age, all full of aggression and hatred but Chiron doesn’t know why – in a house with boarded up windows. He listens as they throw bottles and shout. He curls up tight, chin to knee, and thinks about the beige walls and the stained carpet he’s curled up on. Everything’s so dim.

Maybe an hour later there’s someone knocking at the door and pulling on the windows. His heart leaps into his throat. It turns out just to be a man, tall and dark and friendly looking. He asks Chiron questions, but all of Chiron’s words are frozen in his throat. He offers food.

Chiron stands still, nervously taking in this man that’s violet black.

“Come on, now. Can’t be much worse out here.”

So, they went to eat. Chiron, always so fearful of lack, eats with his head down, hungry as ever. The man – Juan, he learns – jokes with him and takes with it. Well, he doesn’t know it’s a joke. He sits back and bows his head, used to having things taken away. When Juan pushes the food back over, chuckling, Chiron takes the moment to ask Juan about colors.

“Colors? Like purple and white and blue?”

Chiron nods.

“Yeah, I see them colors. Every day and jus’ as strong as anyone. Why you ask lil’ man? You be seein’ colors?”

Chiron nods again.

“Lookat you, lil player! Not even yah high and you got someone giving you the best of it.” Juan’s smile is shiny, white and gold and some silver. “You gotta tell me, lil’ man. Who is it?”

Chiron doesn’t know how to explain so he doesn’t. Juan doesn’t press him anymore, just suggests that he takes Chiron back home. Chiron doesn’t want to go back home to his mother. The house is grey and black and smells terrible. He rather be here with Juan, eating good food and thinking about Kevin’s blue shirt.

It can’t be. Juan says he’s going to take him back to his place, that his girl will get his address out of him. Chiron looks at Juan as he talks about his woman. He always smile, gentle, like something familiar comes to mind when he says those words.

In the car, he wonders if the lady is going to be anything like his mother. When he sees Theresa coming down the steps, eyes shining in a way that’s safe and warm like a fireplace, he knows she won’t be. She’s brown too, clean and refreshing and so different. She fries chicken and pours him juice, ruffles his hair and calls him by his given name even though Juan calls him Little.

When he refuses to go home, she looks at him with concerned but weary eyes. Theresa takes in a deep breath.

She makes a bed for him.

Chiron knows she can see colors because she’s pointing them out to him. Theresa knows he can see colors because he responds. He sleeps on top of the covers, not wanting to mess up her good work.

In the morning, Juan takes him back home. Colors are supposed to dim when you’re always from your soulmate, but they’re strong around these new people, these surrogate parents. He says something to that affect, small and short, but Juan hears it anyway and smiles.

“Your mind don’t decide on colors, little man. It’s ya heart. Mind might say you wanna glow for your mother, for some stranger you see on the street.” Hands flexing on the steering wheel. “Heart says you have colors for people that make you happy and make you feel safe.”

Chiron decides then that his heart wants to be with Juan and Theresa, sleeping in the guest bedroom that smells like vanilla and incense. The feeling only gets bigger, brighter when they’re at the front door. Chiron knows that there is no more postponing this. He’ll have to go inside, back to his mother’s colors and his mother’s smell.

Juan plays a game with him. Juan gives him money that’s just for him. His world glows, but that’s only for a moment because his mother is at the door. She’s worried – funny that – and wondering where he’s been. She’s wondering who Juan is too, but Chiron doesn’t think there are any words to describe that Juan feels like a father and a friend and a god.

They’re saying words he doesn’t understand. He slips into the house, takes off his shoes and looks around the drab, little place. He knows the door is closed soon and that Juan is probably on his way back home now. His mother’s words are loud and hard and full of worry. She’s got her hands on her hips, but they’re soon around him, squeezing him tight. She’s grabbing him and cooing, touching his cheeks with soft hands reserved for mothers. She pleads for him to be safe and come home when he’s meant to.

His mother is brown and grey and pink. He wonders if he looks the same. 

* * *

 

Kevin is olive-toned grass and striped red shirts. Kevin is kicking a makeshift soccer ball down a field. Kevin is his, and he’s almost sure of this. He’s seen in movies when people meet their soulmates that their worlds glow bigger and bolder. He touches Kevin’s neck, right under his ear and feels sparks go through him. He doesn’t know why him soul shakes, why his entire being is vibrating. Touching Kevin’s face feels like dancing. It’s Valentine’s Day cards and ice cream and cream soda from the good grocery store.

Kevin says he’s gotta show the other boys that he’s not soft.

“I _ain’t_ soft.”

Kevin says he knows, but that the others don’t. He pushes at Chiron once, twice.

Then they’re wrestling. Then they’re on the ground, grass and body and legs and arms and face in the crux of each other’s neck. They were laughing but then it’s just silence, body against body as two boys playfought.

Heaving. Breathing. Anthropology. Marionettes. Perfectly human. Perfectly angel.

“See, Little? I knew you weren’t soft.”

He looks Kevin directly in the eye. He is the only one who has his eyes.

Yes. Chiron breaths. Yes, it must be him and him only. 

* * *

 

 The ocean is blue. The sky is blue. Juan is black. He is black.

These are the only colors in the world.

These are the only colors. 

* * *

He is pulled inside and the door is slammed.

At the dining room table, there’s an unfamiliar man. He smells like beer. His mother walks around doing everything and nothing, picking up strange things then telling the man to come on.

Chiron watches. 

* * *

 

He wonders if Kevin’s is like this. He wishes Kevin was in the circle

Hours later when he’s home, the TV isn’t there. He’s listening for his mother, but he’s grateful that she isn’t home. It’s good time for a bath, clear water in a big, white tub that he fills to the brim with bubbles. Under a pile of foam, he thinks about Kevin again. He’s burning, blue and flame. 

* * *

 

Sometimes Chiron sees his mother in blacks and browns and greys. She’s neutral, without color or strong vibration, but today she has gained color. She is red. She is a dangerous sort of black. She’s char and burnt glass and the smell of something that’s been fried down to its ashes.

Chiron loves his mother.

Chiron hates his mother. 

* * *

 

Chiron has only seen Juan in blue and yellow. He’s the good kind of black – safe and warm and good for leaning on. He’s hot coal, night sky, skin that’s strong but easy to lay against. He’s perfect until Juan confirms his suspicions. His mother does drugs and Juan sells them to her.

Monochrome. He goes monochrome.


End file.
